Moran’s conclusion is "what the government has done for the rich in Washington is incredible" and:

Those best able to tap into the federal spigot and draw out massive amounts of cash live and work in Washington and the surrounding countryside. Willie Sutton’s famous explanation for why he robbed banks because that’s where the money is – can be applied to DC as well. The reason for all that government infrastructure is because Washington is where the tax dollars are. And siphoning the wealth of the American people into the maws of lobbying firms, defense contractors, and others who have learned how to use their influence to receive contracts and benefits from government appears to be the #1 industry in the nation’s capital.

Folks makes a crucial political point about the controversy: the Left is motivated by hatred of development and industry more than by love of the environment. "For the left, the real threat of fracking is that it creates wealth that flows into the economy and strengthens the middle class, making it less likely that America will become a socialist state. National prosperity is the last thing the left wants, because prosperity stands in the way of collectivism."

It is hard to sympathize with the natural gas industry in this fight, because the gas interests gave millions of dollars to the enviros for them to run the same kind of mendacious campaign against coal use. The NG companies are now getting savaged by the forces they funded. But the interest of the people and the nation is that this energy revolution continue, however undeserving its operators.

Picking up on the political theme, Tom Trinko’s American Peasantry argues: "While America was founded by the antithesis of peasants, liberals have been working to reestablish the peasant class because liberals view themselves as the modern nobility; wiser, kinder, more knowing than the folk in flyover country and obligated by their superiority to rule over others."

Because "The DNA of Americans is such that any attempt to produce a peasant class by convincing folks that liberals are superior to the average Joe or Jane is doomed to failure," says Trinko, "liberals have taken the second path — frighten the people to the extent that they feel the government is the only source of safety."

In this calculus, a bad economy is a feature rather than a problem. "A bad economy worked in both FDR and Obama’s favor because it put fear into Americans; sufficient fear that they would turn to government largess as a seemingly safe haven n a time of economic despair."

All three are much richer than can be conveyed by these excerpts. Read them all — and more besides. American Thinker is a constant source of thought-provoking pieces. And it provides original work, well-researched and fact-filled. It is not simply an aggregator of press reports.

Author: "Ending 'Big SIS' (The Special Interest State) and Renewing the American Republic" (2012) [www.SpecialInterestState.org] and "Property Matters--How Property Rights Are Under Assault and Why You Should Care" (1997).
Some former jobs: Assistant Director of Consumer Protection in FTC; member of the Program Analysis Staff of the US Bureau of the Budget; Research Director of the Administrative Conference of the United States; Director of IPCentral at the Progress & Freedom Foundation; VP & GC of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest.
Graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, former Book Review Editor of the Harvard Law Review.